.TH ANACRONTAB 5 2004-07-11 "Pascal Hakim" "Anacron Users' Manual"
.SH NAME
/etc/anacrontab \- configuration file for anacron
.SH DESCRIPTION
The file
.I /etc/anacrontab
describes the jobs controlled by \fBanacron(8)\fR.  Its lines can be of
three kinds:  job-description lines, environment
assignments, or empty lines.
.PP
Job-description lines are of one of these two forms:
.PP
   period  delay  job-identifier  command
.PP
.PP
   @period_name delay job-identify command
.PP
The
.I period
is specified in days, the
.I delay
in minutes.  The
.I job-identifier
can contain any non-blank character, except slashes.  It is used to identify
the job in Anacron messages,
and as the name for the job's timestamp file.  The
.I command
can be any shell command. The fields can be separated by blank spaces or tabs.
The
.I period_name
can only be set to monthly at the present time. This will ensure jobs
are only run once a month, no matter the number of days in this month,
or the previous month.
.PP
Environment assignment lines are of the form:
.PP
   VAR = VALUE
.PP
Spaces around
.I VAR
are removed.  No spaces around
.I VALUE
are allowed (unless you want them to be part of the value).  The assignment
takes effect from the next line to the end of the file, or to the next
assignment of the same variable.
.PP
Empty lines are either blank lines, line containing white-space only, or
lines with white-space followed by a '#' followed by an arbitrary comment.
.PP
You can continue a line onto the next line by ending it with a '\e'.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.B anacron(8)
.PP
The Anacron
.I README
file.
.SH AUTHOR
Itai Tzur <itzur@actcom.co.il>
.PP
Currently maintained by Pascal Hakim <pasc@(debian.org|redellipse.net)>.
